Putrid Meat and Fish in the Eurasian Middle and Upper Paleolithic: Are We Missing a Key Part of Neanderthal and Modern Human Diet?
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Putrid Meat and Fish in the Eurasian Middle and Upper Paleolithic: Are We Missing a Key Part of Neanderthal and Modern Human Diet? JOHN D. SPETH Department of Anthropology, 101 West Hall, 1085 South University Avenue, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107, USA; [email protected] submitted: 21 February 2017; revised 2 April 2017; accepted 4 April 2017 ABSTRACT This paper begins by exploring the role of fermented and deliberately rotted (putrefied) meat, fish, and fat in the diet of modern hunters and gatherers throughout the arctic and subarctic. These practices partially ‘pre-digest’ the high protein and fat content typical of northern forager diets without the need for cooking, and hence without the need for fire or scarce fuel. Because of the peculiar properties of many bacteria, including various lactic acid bacteria (LAB) which rapidly colonize decomposing meat and fish, these foods can be preserved free of pathogens for weeks or even months and remain safe to eat. In addition, aerobic bacteria in the early stages of putrefaction deplete the supply of oxygen in the tissues, creating an anaerobic environment that retards the production of po- tentially toxic byproducts of lipid autoxidation (rancidity). Moreover, LAB produce B-vitamins, and the anaerobic environment favors the preservation of vitamin C, a critical but scarce micronutrient in heavily meat-based north- ern diets. If such foods are cooked, vitamin C may be depleted or lost entirely, increasing the threat of scurvy. Psy- chological studies indicate that the widespread revulsion shown by many Euroamericans to the sight and smell of putrefied meat is not a universal hard-wired response, but a culturally learned reaction that does not emerge in young children until the age of about five or later, too late to protect the infant from pathogens during the highly vulnerable immediate-post-weaning period. Ethnohistoric and ethnographic evidence clearly show that putrefied meat and fish were not used solely as starvation foods, but served instead as ubiquitous, desirable, and nutrition- ally important components of forager diets throughout these northern environments. In the second part of the paper, I extend these arguments to suggest that putrefied meat, fish, and fat are likely to have been equally impor- tant to the lifeways and adaptations of Eurasian Paleolithic hominins inhabiting analogous environments. If such food practices were in fact widespread during the mid- to late Pleistocene, they may help account for aspects of the archaeological record that are presently difficult to comprehend, such as the ‘on again, off again’ evidence for fire use (and hence cooking) during the Eurasian Middle Paleolithic. Putrefaction also may alter the isotopic composi- tion of the diet. As meat and fish decompose, a variety of volatile compounds are produced, including ammonia. Loss of NH3, along with lesser amounts of two other nitrogenous gases—cadaverine and putrescine—would very likely leave rotted meat and fish enriched in15 N by comparison to the isotopic composition of these foods in their fresh state. Such enrichment may have contributed to the elevated values seen in many Neanderthals, values that are widely taken as prima facie evidence of Neanderthal’s status as a ‘top predator.’ Finally, if Paleolithic foragers relied upon putrefaction to prepare and store meat, archaeologists may have to rethink the way they interpret a number of widely used taphonomic signatures, including the number and distribution of cutmarks, the extent of carnivore damage, the incidence of burning on both animal bones and stone tools, and the frequency and scale of hearths, ash lenses, and other features of combustion. INTRODUCTION y nature most Paleolithic archaeologists—myself in- cluded—are empiricists. We want facts and, under- “When we fix salmon head we put it in bucket in ground and B we take it out and eat it. We leave it in ten days only because standably, we build our interpretations closely around it will spoil in summer.... Stinkfish, oooh, I love that stinkfish. them. After all, what good are interpretations in archaeol- Smell funny, but it sure taste good....“ (Mary Tyone, quoted ogy if their aim is to account for domains of behavior in in Godduhn and Kostick 2016: 30) the past that we cannot ‘see’ in the material record? With- out the facts, we may be doing little more than weaving fanciful stories out of whole cloth—creating archaeological ‘fairy tales’ or ‘just-so’ stories. PaleoAnthropology 2017: 44−72. © 2017 PaleoAnthropology Society. All rights reserved. ISSN 1545-0031 doi:10.4207/PA.2017.ART105 Putrid Meat and Fish in the Paleolithic • 45 On the other hand, there are a number of behavioral tundras, arctic steppes, and boreal forests that are, or were, domains that for all practical purposes remain archaeologi- home to northern foragers of the ‘ethnographic present.’ cally invisible, or at least frustratingly intractable, despite More to the point, these are precisely the kinds of environ- the fact that we know they are present, even universal, ments in which modern foragers routinely relied on fer- among modern foragers. Gender provides a classic case mented and deliberately rotted meat, fish, fat, fish roe, and in point. Gender distinctions are central to hunting and stomach contents. In fact, many explorers, ethnographers, gathering societies across the globe and play a fundamen- ethnohistorians, and nutritionists over the years have con- tal role in the daily lives of these peoples (e.g., Brumbach cluded that life in northern environments might not have and Jarvenpa 2006; Frink 2009). They must therefore have been possible without frequent recourse to fermented ani- a prehistory, one that very likely extends well back into the mal foods (Kozlov and Zdor 2003: 129). So, is it not likely, Paleolithic. But we remain all but helpless when it comes or at least plausible, that Neanderthals, and perhaps even to ‘seeing’ gender in the Paleolithic record, where stone their predecessors, as well as Upper Paleolithic foragers, tools are just about the only artifacts with which we have might have done likewise? to work. Given the male-centric biases that we standardly bring to lithic studies, coupled with the inadequacies of the WHY DOES IT MATTER TO PALEOLITHIC methods at our disposal and the almost total lack of suit- ARCHAEOLOGISTS? able middle range theory (Gero 1991), we are compelled There is much more at stake in the answer to this question to pay little more than lip service to the issue. As a con- than merely adding some offensive smelling oddities to the sequence, there is considerable risk that a portion—quite culinary repertoire of our Pleistocene forebears. For reasons likely a substantial portion—of the variability that we are to be discussed shortly, if fermentation of the type seen his- trying to explain in Paleolithic stone tool assemblages de- torically in the northern latitudes was also practiced as an rives from gendered behavior, not from the usual list of alternative to cooking on a more-than-occasional basis by Eur- ‘suspects’ to which we almost invariably turn (e.g., differ- asian Neanderthals and Upper Paleolithic hominins, we ences in raw material, site function, cultural tradition). may have to modify, in some cases quite radically, the way Unlike gender distinctions, which most Paleolithic ar- we go about reconstructing many aspects of their behav- chaeologists are at least well aware of, there are potentially ior and lifeways, including, among others: (1) estimating important domains of past behavior that are not only ar- the metabolic costs of digesting and assimilating the large chaeologically invisible, but have almost never received amounts of protein in a heavily meat-based diet (Churchill even so much as lip service. One such domain—the focus 2014: 325; Speth and Spielmann 1983); (2) accounting for the of the present endeavor—concerns the use of deliberately on-again, off-again evidence for fire (and hence cooking) fermented (often literally rotted or putrefied) meat, fish, fat, in the European Middle Paleolithic, and in particular the and stomach contents. Ubiquitous today and in the recent seemingly counterintuitive decline in the incidence of fire past in the foodways of foragers throughout the circum- use (in at least some sites) during colder climatic episodes polar regions (Yamin-Pasternak et al. 2014), and important (Sandgathe et al. 2011; see also Sorensen 2017); (3) broaden- even well beyond the northern latitudes (Audubon 1897: ing our view of the potential range of hominin food preser- 496–497; Barnes et al. 1973; Buck et al. 2016; Budack 1977; vation and storage capabilities and consequent patterns of Cawthorn 1997; Coues 1897: 356–357; Darwin 1860: 213– site occupancy and mobility; (4) assessing what impact, if 214; Dirar 1992; Dornan 1925: 115; Ealy 1880: 134–135; Grey any, the repeated consumption of millions upon millions of 1841: 276–278; Griffiths 1975; Johnston 1908: 627; Kelsey bacteria and their complex metabolites, together with the 1997: 204; Marlowe 2004a: 191; Newcomb 1961: 41; Oye- normal postmortem biochemical products of endogenous wole 1997; Selous 1881: 436; Winship 1896: 528), fermented muscle and lipid decomposition, might have had on the and rotted animal foods are—or at least were until quite carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values of Neanderthals recently—key dietary staples that were absolutely vital to and Upper Paleolithic peoples (Bocherens 2011; Richards the viability and success of these northern foraging groups. and Trinkaus 2009); and, (5) developing taphonomic sig- An admittedly cursory scan of the literature using natures that take into account the impact that non-thermal Google Scholar revealed a smattering of articles over the fermentation and putrefaction are likely to have had on years which briefly mention—usually in just a sentence or signs of anthropogenic involvement in assemblage forma- two—the possibility that Paleolithic foragers might have tion (e.g., the frequency of charred bones, the abundance eaten fermented foods, most notably the stomach contents and anatomical distribution of cutmarks), the survivorship of certain ungulates and birds.